Explanation:
What did the first galaxies look like?
To help answer this question, the Hubble Space Telescope has just finished taking the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF), the deepest image of the
universe ever taken in
visible light.
Pictured above, the HUDF shows a sampling of the
oldest galaxies ever seen,
galaxies that formed just after the
dark ages, 13 billion years ago, when the universe was
only 5 percent of its present age.
The Hubble Space Telescope's
NICMOS and new
ACS cameras took the image.
Staring nearly 3 months at the same spot, the
HUDF is four times more sensitive, in some colors,
than the original Hubble Deep Field (HDF).
Astronomers the world over will likely study the
HUDF for years to come to
better understand how stars and galaxies formed in the early universe.